We're back, the podcast that offers you such an amazing engineering education that you just can't leave. If you've ever wanted to leave a software platform, hardware experience, or podcast but just don't feel like you want to risk it...we're here to help.

The holidays are a time for family, friends, food... and stuff. A lot of stuff. Prompted by a study that revealed that the average child receives over 70 presents a year, we set out to design one gift for each popular gift-giving demographic.

This week we discuss our relationship with technology as consumers. Each of us has a different reaction to the idea of investing in a new technology, ranging from anxious obsession to zen acceptance. We talk about today's exciting cutting edge technologies in personal electronics and home automation, and whether we would pay for them or wait to see how the industry matures.

This week we talk a little about the last couple years of podcasting, but more about how our careers changed over the years. Hopefully you'll get some insight into how engineering roles morph over time to lead you in new and exciting directions.

Many people have expressed disappointment in The Giant Robot Duel that took place earlier this week; the robots moved too slowly, there were too many safety precautions in place... basically it was kind of boring. In this week's podcast we take inspiration from the robot battle to answer the question, how do we make a tech sport that people actually want to watch? Pete wants robot obstacle courses, Abbey wants a sport to play with friends, and Simon wants to defend his title as the "best robot fighter in this hood." From drone racing to drifting power wheels, we breakdown what tech sports people actually care about.

We're back! Well, Pete and Simon are back to talk about current events. If you are an engineer, you probably find yourself idly trying to imagine how you would use your engineering skills to help make life better in the wake of natural disasters. In this episode, we indulge this impulse and discuss how we could design living spaces to survive hurricanes and other natural disasters. We discuss arcologies, shipping containers, and for some reason, doughnuts.

This week we premiere a "new" episode format: Good Question! Simon read a thing on the internet that raised a question about whether AI should be required to speak human language. Our conversation spirals down a winding road, and doesn't really end in any life altering revelations, but it's an interesting journey.

In Canada we have a legal responsibility as engineers for the people that use our designs, but do we have an ethical responsibility as well? This week we ask a lot of questions, but arrive at very few answers. Prompted by an episode of Radiolab, we discuss the moral and ethical implications of R&D. If any platform can be misused, at what point do you shut it down? And whose job is it to make that decision? If there is one thing we can all agree on, it is that engineers need to think more.

This week everyone is in attendance again as we go back to basics and take a look at the fundamental concept of design. What does it mean to design? How do we learn to be designers? Does an engineering education prepare one to design well? Answers to almost none of these questions and much much more await you. Honestly this is really just scratching the surface, but we hope it will start some really interesting conversations in the future. Hope you enjoy!

From our summer vacation (except for Simon), we return to podcasting with an update on the Tesla Model 3, and ventures in general. Abbey and Pete chat about the potential for electric cars, trains, and other dreams of an 8 year old Elon Musk.

Prosthesis are designed to replace lost or missing body parts, but what if they could do more? Inspired by The Third Thumb prosthetic, this week we discuss the possibility of enhancing human ability with various prostheses. Pete wants a prehensile tail, while Abbey just wants to flip through a book without using her arms. We describe (possibly dangerous) experiments with pure oxygen, and Simon discusses why gills are his top choice.

Welcome back to the past. Now that we have secured a good standard of living with light, heat, shelter and books, we have to spread the word. That requires a way to communicate information over long distances. We didn't want to rely on the actual historical method of guys on horses, so instead we tried to make semaphore, telegraph, and even a tiny underground message service.

What is your favorite programming language, and what would you change to make it better? Those are the questions that we ask this week. Abbey talks a bit about creating graphical UI designs using XML, and Pete and Simon share their experiences with graphical programming. We compile our experiences, and parse their meaning before we assemble it all together.

This episode we got together to talk about nothing... but we ended up talking about too much. Too much work, that is. When opportunity comes knocking, how do you say no? This week we discuss managing our time, and every one else's expectations. Pete explains how to be a manager using a (perfectly accurate) sports analogy, and we talk about when to burn a project to the ground and rebuild. Remember engineers: in the end it's about saying no to yourself.

We've been talking about doing this episode for a while, but wanted to prepare our thoughts a little beforehand. Engineering has been understood for years to have a serious problem with diversity. We don't necessarily have the same ideas, and we almost certainly don't share all of your ideas, but we thought that it is important to discuss the issues and possible solutions to try to see where we come to.

Our trips to the year zero are back. This week we return to the past and create the worlds first 'zine. We start by trying to encode data for longevity. In an attempt to keep to a reasonable episode length we decided to limit the problem to reproducing text data for distribution. Soon we have a solution for spreading our propaganda across the ancient world. As usual we run around in circles and come up with a half-reasonable solution.

This week we travelled to big, scary Manhattan to talk to long-time guest and friend of the show, Safwan. Safwan joined us from his fancy office to discuss deep learning, AI, and the steamballing effects of big data. But before we can get there, we have to find the best way to navigate through the building.

How much private information are you willing to give away in exchange for services or discounts? We start off this week discussing how insurance companies trade information on you and your habits in exchange for discounts, but soon branch off in all directions related to privacy and security.

This week, we follow our love of words and look at one of Simon's favourite words: "Skeuomorphism." It's a five dollar word for a concept that you might know more about than you think. We jump off of the idea of skeuomorphs into a conversation on the general future of software interfaces (as we often do) so if you're into that, we have a podcast for you.

We're changing things up for a couple months